mystics

I do often find the books written by mystics as mystifying! And so put them down quick; and I don’t think I’m the only one. For mysticism is often viewed as confused, irrational thinking.

Tantilising insights amidst the paradox

Sometimes I feel mystics intentionally obscure the meaning of something to make it more difficult to grasp and that’s when I long for the clear albeit doctrinaire statements of orthodox religion or for that matter the dogmas of materialistic science. At least they do not so obviously contain contradiction and paradox. Yet occasionally I do get glimpses of something in the writing of mystics that I can only describe as giving me sudden deep moments of intuition.

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Pierre Telihard de Chardin – one of the mystics

Still keen to get a handle on the mystics, I recently started reading Hymn of the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin whose words are said to be part of the treasury of mystical literature.

I sensed here a heavenly perception of the warmth and light of the creative Spirit

“Over there, on the horizon, the sun has
just touched with light, the outermost fringe of the eastern sky. Once again, beneath this moving sheet of fire, the living surface of the earth wakes and trembles”

A love and respect for so many people trying to fulfill what he calls the creative Energy.

“The whole vast anonymous army of living humanity; those who surround me and support me though I do not know them … who today will take up again their impassioned pursuit of the light.”

I felt a universal humanity with all its separate parts working together complementing each other to bring about heaven on earth.

As well as those “despite their error”, “confused or orderly”. “All of them, Lord, I will try to gather into my arms”

Is this not a love for his fellow man whom he asks God to “receive” and with whom he asks “Lord make us one”?

Mystics have more in common despite varying religious backgrounds

Mystics come from different religious backgrounds and there are mystic traditions which form sub-currents such as Kabbalah within Judaism, Sufism within Islam, Vedanta within Hinduism, and Christian mysticism within Christianity.

A scientist can also be one of the mystics

Teilhard de Chardin comes from a Roman Catholic background and demonstrates the basic Christian attitude that of ourselves we are lifeless but that we can be in-filled with the divine Life if we turn to it.

“As for us creatures, of ourselves we are but emptiness and obscurity. But you, my God, are the inmost depths, the stability of that eternal milieu, without duration or space.”

Here we have the characteristic of mystical writing – poetry disguised as prose. Little or no attempt to provide rational coherence and structure but rather we get a subjective expression of devotional emotion.

Nevertheless in other of his writing he was a leading proponent of the idea that evolution occurs in a directional, goal driven way rather than due to the accidents of natural selection. Trained as a paleontologist and geologist as well as a Jesuit priest, he had a reverence for the natural world and a continual awareness of the spiritual.

“Like the pagan I worship a God who can be touched; and I do indeed touch him – this God – over the whole surface and in the depths of that world of matter which confines me.”

But he adds that it is more than the emotion felt by the pagan as he lies prostrate before a tangible divinity. “Through your own incarnation, my God, all matter is henceforth incarnate.”

This reminds me of the mystical idea of the whole of creation as mirroring the
Divine soul operating in the world of people. Where accepted it is shown in the
beauty of nature. Every single thing within the natural order should be cared for because it is an image of the Divine. In each thing we see in the forest, on the mountain and in the sea, something that meaningfully represents the spiritual dimension.

Esoteric secrets or mystical insights available to all

It is difficult to find words to express and describe meaningful insights. And so
the perceptions of the mystics are often regarded as ‘hidden secrets’, or ‘esoteric knowledge’ – and for the initiated only. Yet mystics themselves often seem to think that what is out of sight can be found by every person. It is said to be there in all of us, it is just that but we may not yet be able to recognize it.

Likewise according to Emanuel Swedenborg — who also came from a Christian background, and who also had mystical experiences — no matter how well educated and intelligent you are, you need inner enlightenment from the Lord to perceive spiritual matters.

He claimed this inspiration is the illumination that the angels of heaven enjoy and comes to those who are closely linked in their hearts and minds with the spirit of love and truth. The ideas of natural thought, to do with place, time, person or material objects, cannot provide the deep insights of the mystic.

In his book Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg wrote:

“At times I have entered into the state in which angels are, and in that state have talked with them, and then understood everything. But when I was brought back into my former state, and thus into the natural thought proper to man, and wished to recall what I had heard, I could not. For there were thousands of things not on a level with the ideas of natural thought, and therefore only to be expressed by variegations of heavenly light, and thus not at all by human words.”

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Today we are discovering or, to be more exact, rediscovering that the inner and outer worlds of our experience are closely related to each other. What we see in the images and experiences of the outer world is in some sense dependent on what elements are currently active within our psyche.

In that way outer images and forms can mirror or reflect, and, therefore, reveal living aspects of our inner world. Potentially, therefore, everything in our outer experience is a possible source of revelation of our inner realities and current state — as many mystics report. How we perceive and interpret events is very much a reflection of our individual selves.

Universal import of myths and legends

Just as there are underlying universal physical laws in the physical world, and underlying universal patterns of growth and development in the biological world, would it be so surprising to discover that there are also underlying universal patterns of psychological development which lie within the great myths and legends that have survived eons of human ages and development?

Witness the frequent emotive and evocative use made of them by so many of the great poets. Today, the psychologist Jung’s discoveries and interpretations in this area of ancient myths and legends is now well known, and have been influential in dispelling the rationalist’s judgment that myths are no more than primitive and superstitious beliefs about non-realities, or primitive pre-scientific attempts to explain natural phenomena.

Daedalus and Icarus

Remember the myth of Daedalus and Icarus? In order to escape from the Labyrinth in which they had found themselves imprisoned, Daedalus made wings (of wax!) for himself and his son Icarus, but warned his son not to fly too high. Ignoring his father’s advice, Icarus soared proudly up towards the sun which melted the wax, causing Icarus to fall into the ocean and drown. ‘Trying to fly too high’ — with wings of wax’.

Could a legend like that have originated without any deeper message for the hearer; without some inner significance that was the real reason for the story being told in the first place? Today we are perhaps uncovering some of the deeper awareness of the ancients which they were able to express only in story form. The difference is that, unlike them, we have an articulate psychological terminology with which to express it.

Psychospiritual Import of Sacred Scriptures

And further would it be so surprising to find that the key stories within the ancient sacred scriptures are still alive and vibrant today, retaining their emotive and sacred power because they symbolically express deep universal spiritual patterns of human experience and development?

The Buddha and Jesus are perhaps the best known ‘spiritual psychologists’ from the past, who demonstrated their incisive ability to plumb the spiritual and psychological depths in humanity through the use of symbol and parable, in the ancient scriptures as well as in their own parables, so many of which have also come down to us. For example, Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son with its universal experiential patterns has stirred up and brought to light countless deep spiritual emotions and insights in those who have been prepared to ‘hear’ it with an open spirit.

The Old Testament

Generally, ‘tales’ inevitably become embellished and details changed in the telling. But in the Old testament of the Bible we have a record of ancient religious myth and sacred history of accuracy second to none due to the meticulous copying skills and strict rules of the semitic scribes known as the Massoretes.

Sadly, later interpretations of the Old testament by scholars and theologians in the Christian era became merely historical and literal, lacking spiritual and psychological depth so that it became largely dismissed or neglected as too archaic and repulsive for the modern mind. So it remained unrecognised as a potential revelation of timeless psychospiritual truths and inner realities concerning potentials divinely embedded in the human spirit, the obstacles to their development and the ways these may be overcome. The key to such deeper meaning became lost.

Swedenborg

It was not until the 18th century when rationalism was getting into its full stride that a psychospiritual breakthrough came. Emanuel Swedenborg, a distinguished philosopher, following a period of humbling transformative inner experiences, began to publish his revelatory writings. In 1747 he startled leaders of the Christian church with the opening statement of his great work, Arcana Caelestia (Heavenly Secrets).

“The Word of the Old Testament contains heavenly secrets…Every single detail, even the smallest…means and embodies matters that are spiritual and celestial — a truth of which the Christian world is still profoundly ignorant…The subject of Genesis 1 is, in the internal sense, the new creation of man, that is, in general, his regeneration.”

In the Genesis creation story Swedenborg sees how the emergent kingdoms of nature correspond to emergent levels of the human mind and spirit and so provide a universal key to the interpretation of natural images in all the subsequent stories in the Bible.

Thus the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden with its two trees, the divine prohibition, Adam’s falling into a deep sleep, the serpent and the ignoring of the divine warning, reveals how the human spirit is drawn into an egocentric state which, spiritually, is dreamlike and inevitably becomes subject to negative consequences.Some form of psychospiritual rescue operation is needed which, as Swedenborg, shows, the Bible goes on to symbolically outline in detail.

So the Bible will never become dated or irrelevant so long as the human mind is able to recognise its own universal inner states and stages of spiritual development reflected in the personae, events and dramas of such well-preserved sacred narratives.

trudom22

BY BELIEVING IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST IS MEANT BELIEVING IN THE SPIRITUAL QUALITY OF LIFE HE CAME TO REVEAL,,NOT A MERE PAYING LIP SERVICE TO A HISTORICAL FIGURE...PRAYER COMES FROM TRUTH INSIDE YOU,AND YOU ARE CONTINUALLY AT PRAYER WHEN YOU LIVE ACCORDING TO THAT TRUTH... UPON A LIFE I DID NOT LIVE,UPON A DEATH I DID NOT DIE,I RISK MY WHOLE ETERNITY...NOTHING IN MY HANDS I BRING SIMPLY TO THE CROSS I CLING, FOR REMEMBER THAT THESE BAD BEGINNINGS HAVE HAD A GREAT EFFECT IN MAKING A MAN FRUITLESS,

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trudom22

just be yourself, no one else is better qualified.
people will forget what you said,what you did,but they will never forget how you made them feel.

Thought of the Day: Minimize distortion by turning down the volume of your inner dialogue.

ones heart speaks louder then ones intellect.

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together.

Stop the habit of wishful thinking and start the habit of thoughtful wishes.

The whole worth of a kind deed is in the love that inspires it.
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

Challenge is a dragon with a gift in its mouth... Tame the dragon and the gift is yours.

You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.

the purpose of life, is a life of purpose.

the more you are as a person the less you have to prove yourself to others.

without the rich heart, wealth is an ugly begger.

life is not a rehersal,so live it.

if love is not a game why is there so many players.
good judgement comes from experience,experience comes from bad judgement.battles are often won by walking away and fighting another day.the difficult i do right away the impossible takes a bit longer.

posted by Domenic

The heart opens when the mind lets go of fearful thoughts. An open heart, filled with love, is the conduit for manifestation. What would it take to open your heart? When was the last time you truly felt your heart wide open? Your heart, wide open to acceptance, is the place to create your dreams. Take a moment and open your heart. Feel the presence of the Divine. Feel the creation of your dreams. Feel the complete peace that is felt with an open heart. I love you all. im not a big fan of organized religion,there always hating someone for some reason or another... im ashamed to die until i have won some victory for humanity...-never explain-your friends don't need it and your enemies will not belive you anyways... the greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own...treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they should be...share our similarities,celebrate our differences....THERE IS MORE IN US THEN WE KNOW,IF WE CAN BE MADE TO SEE IT,PERHAPS FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES WE WILL BE UNWILLING TO SETTLE FOR LESS,
Who I'd like to meet:
people who are not afraid to be themselfs.just be yourself no one else is better qualaified.if you judge people you have no time to love them.